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According to Plato, lots and choice play a part [in the
determination of human conditions] before the Spindle of
Necessity is turned; that once done, only the Spindle-destiny is
valid; it fixes the chosen conditions irretrievably since the
elected guardian-spirit becomes accessory to their
accomplishment.
But what is the significance of the Lots?
By the Lots we are to understand birth into the conditions
actually existent in the All at the particular moment of each
entry into body, birth into such and such a physical frame, from
such and such parents, in this or that place, and generally all
that in our phraseology is the External.
For Particulars and Universals alike it is established that to
the first of those known as the Fates, to Clotho the Spinner,
must be due the unity and as it were interweaving of all that
exists: Lachesis presides over the Lots: to Atropos must
necessarily belong the conduct of mundane events.
Of men, some enter into life as fragments of the All, bound to
that which is external to themselves: they are victims of a sort
of fascination, and are hardly, or not at all, themselves: but
others mastering all this- straining, so to speak, by the head
towards the Higher, to what is outside even the Soul- preserve
still the nobility and the ancient privilege of the Soul's
essential being.
For certainly we cannot think of the Soul as a thing whose nature
is just a sum of impressions from outside- as if it, alone, of
all that exists, had no native character.
No: much more than all else, the Soul, possessing the Idea which
belongs to a Principle, must have as its native wealth many
powers serving to the activities of its Kind. It is an
Essential-Existent and with this Existence must go desire and act
and the tendency towards some good.
While body and soul stand one combined thing, there is a joint
nature, a definite entity having definite functions and
employments; but as soon as any Soul is detached, its employments
are kept apart, its very own: it ceases to take the body's
concerns to itself: it has vision now: body and soul stand widely
apart.
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